Below, you can read our interview with singer-songwriter Phil Celia and learn more about his new album Through the Years. Check out our full review of Through the Years here.
Q: Great to be speaking with you, Phil! You’ve said that Through the Years isn’t a record you could have written when you were younger. What did you have to live through before these songs became possible to write?
A: Well, in a word, “life”. When you are a young man and set out on your own, you essentially have a blank canvas and you start painting it. And as you start filling it up, you encounter all that’s up against you and all that’s for you. Your purpose, your passions …as you get older, somethings are harder to hold on to. The canvas fills up. Things get in the way, physically, mentally, financially, and so on. Like in the song “Long Road”, there’s a line that says, “and you fight to find the fire you once needed to fight off all the demons for succeeding on that long road”. That about sums it up.
Q: There’s a recurring idea on the album of finding your way back, whether that means home, faith, or a sense of where you belong. What does “home” mean to you at this stage of your life?
A: Being present with myself, purposeful and peaceful. Over the years, I’ve learned that home is not a physical place, it’s a place within. I try to get to that place every day, but quite honestly, I seldom do. That’s part of my struggle. As I look back on a lot of my writing over the years, “home” has always been a recurring theme, a common thread through much of my work that has been continually evolving from the physical to the within. There’s another line in the song “Long Road”, that goes, “seems like I’ve been singing the same song ”. Finding my way ‘home’ has been a part of that.
Q: “Long Road” asks some pretty big questions about ambition, choices, and the fire that drives us when we’re young. Has your definition of success changed over the course of your career?
A: Well, my perspective now if quite different from when I was a young artist starting out. The music industry was quite different then. You really needed a record deal to be heard by a larger audience. I have always just wanted to write, record, perform, and find an audience for my songs. As an independent artist, I now have the ability to get my music out there regardless of being signed to a label, it’s a much different time. That said, the revenue stream has considerably changed; you need to build an incredibly large fan base before anyone will throw money at you to take you to the next level, so it’s a challenge to cut through the noise and make a living. I understood early on that as the primary singer-songwriter/solo artist, I would have to find a way to fund it all and thankfully I have been able to do that, for the most part. Although, not always easy. But for me, monetary success with my music was never the focus, I just wanted to write and share my songs with an audience. I’ve been doing that for over 30 years since my first album, “Songs of Men was released in 1996. Success these days lies with my family. My long marriage, watching our sons build their lives and their own families as good men and good husbands and fathers. My wife and I sit back and say, “Guess we did ok!”
Q: You’ve said the album is meant, if possible, to be heard straight through. What do you think gets lost when listeners encounter these songs individually rather than as one complete work?
A: I do think each song stands on its own, but they make more sense when listened to together and in sequence. There’s a recurring theme that ties them together when the record is listened to in its entirety. I think that it is more impactful. There’s a story in the sequence of these songs, a beginning, middle, and end when heard together. I made the record purposefully under 30 minutes in hopes listeners would take it all in.
Q: You self-produced most of Through the Years. Did taking the lead on production make it easier to create such a personal record, or did it make it harder to know when a song was finished?
A: I enjoyed having the freedom to take my time, working alone, until I was satisfied with the writing, the recordings felt good, and the sequence of the songs told the story I was trying to tell. However, it did take recording quite a few songs for me to find the record I was searching for, so that took time. For the first time, I really didn’t play it for anyone for feedback along the way either. I just wanted myself to be satisfied. It’s funny, but through much of the project I actually had a different working title for the album until I sequenced it. When I did and chose to close with the song “Through the Years”, it made more sense for that to be the title of the album. You never know until it all unfolds.
Q: You’ve been recording for more than three decades. What can Phil Celia in 2026 do as a songwriter or performer that Phil Celia 20 or 30 years ago couldn’t?
A: That’s an interesting question. For one, I am more confident and comfortable with the artist I am now than I was then. I know how to “limit myself to the best of my abilities” and have a considerable degree of confidence in my writing and my performing. I am far from being musically proficient; my core strengths have always been in the writing and in the lyrics. To be honest, I really wasn’t planning on playing as much as I did on this record. I could have found a more gifted guitar player or bassist or even a keyboardist who could have embellished the music a bit more. I did try a bit of that along the way, but in the end, with the exception of the string arrangements and the addition of live drums, it just felt better to leave it alone and do it myself. I just took the time and do what I do. For me, that made the record all the more personal. 20 or 30 years ago, I would have never done that.
Q: Perhaps in some unspecified amount of time, your musical career explodes in the best of ways. What does that look like for you?
A: Hitting the road with a budget! Whether solo or with a band, I do love to perform. But it’s challenging for an original independent artist these days to not only secure the gigs but to finance a tour. In an age where the small to medium independent music venue is struggling to support live original music, you are up against tribute bands and the like. It becomes a bit more limited. In large markets, like LA, the original venues for unsigned acts, or for any act, for that matter, are sadly pay-to-play. Wanna play the iconic Whisky a Go Go? Just commit to buying 100 tickets at $10 or $15 a pop to sell to your fans … up front. It’s that sort of thing. Crazy.
Q: You get to collaborate with anyone of your choosing. Who is it?
A: It might be Elton John or Billy Joel, both excellent tunesmiths. Billy and I are both graduates from Hicksville High School on Long Island so that might be interesting.
Q: Your favorite album of all time? (Yup, you gotta choose one.)
A: Man, that’s a tough one. There are so many albums and songs that have made a big impression or have remarkably changed my life in some way. But I do have what I call my “deserted island trilogy”. These are the records that I would want with me if I were to be stranded on a deserted island. When I was 15, I was gifted three albums that have been the catalyst and cornerstone of my writing since. They are Neil Young’s “Harvest”, “Songs for Beginners” by Graham Nash, and the first album by America. But if you are asking me to pick just one and only one, it would have to be Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town”. When I first heard that record as a young 21-year-old, it blew up my world and set me on my life’s path. “Mister I ain’t a boy no I’m a man, and I believe in the promise land” still holds true to this day.
Q: Your favorite song of all time? (Again, only one!)
A: “Fly Me To The Moon” by Frank Sinatra and the Count Basie Band. The version on the Sinatra at the Sands record from 1965 is an all-time classic! “Fill my life with song and let me sing forevermore”. That’s really it for me.
Q: What would you like fans to know about you that they’re most likely unaware of?
A: That’s a hard one, but if you listen to my body of work over the last 30 years, you pretty much will know me. Even though my songs are not all entirely autobiographical, I am, to some degree, in all of them. I’ve been writing songs since I was about 12, and at age 15, I knew I wanted to be a songwriter and a performer. It’s something I’ve been doing ever since. The opening song on this new record, “Before it’s Gone,” speaks to that. Putting your life down in a song, before it’s gone. That’s something I continually do.
Q: Any shout-outs you wanna make?
A: Certainly my brother Perry, who has always been there for me as my musical soulmate and a champion for my writing. And of course my wife Sue, who for 44 years has been by my side. And of course my sons Matthew and David, who now have their own creative careers and families. They continue to inspire me to be my best every day.
Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
A: I also want my audience to know that I am a committed artist. The 30-plus years I’ve been performing, recording, and releasing my own music is a testament to that, and I plan to keep going. There’s a song “Out of Tune Guitar” on my 2013 “Circus Town” album that speaks to that. I’ve seen many talented and gifted songwriters and musicians along the way just give it up, or it just became not that important to them anymore. The fire burnt out. The line goes “… I just kept keeping at it, it was all that I could do, one thing is for certain, once you quit you’re through”. To keep going is what I’m all about. Other than that, I really appreciated the great questions and thank you for the opportunity to share a little insight into myself and my work.